


the days of a life still permanent

by plinys



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Amnesia, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 06:24:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3599664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He manages to get out the words, “who the fuck are you,” before everything is swallowed up by blackness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the days of a life still permanent

**Author's Note:**

> So, I couldn't figure out how to post this up on lj, because I'm a failure, and also I wrote this at work tonight, so my brain is a little bit slow on the uptake, but I fell in love with this prompt and I hope I did it justice. (also apologies on it being unbeta'd for now)
> 
> Prompt: When Eggsy awakes in hospital with virtually no memory of the last few years of his life, he’s surprised to find an older yet handsome man called Harry dressed in an impeccable suit, holding his hand and looking exhausted, claiming to be his husband. The rings are proof of that and Harry does look like the sort of guy Eggsy would go for. Due to his other injuries (brain surgery amoung others) Eggsy needs looking after but is unable to trust himself or his memory, so is forced to trust and rely on man he doesn’t know. He quickly learns Harry is a devoted husband and enjoys catering to Eggsy’s every need but Eggsy struggles to re-gain his memory, he finds himself lost among people and places that should be safe and familiar, he feels lost and frightened, and Harry seems to be the only certain and dependable thing in his life. Harry takes Eggsy back to their large home to aid Eggsy’s recovery, but although Harry is kind and loving he isn’t so anxious for Eggsy to remember. Things seem...not right. Rooms are locked, things are missing but Eggsy can’t think what they are, the memories are just too out of reach and meeting his old friends Roxy and Merlin only makes things more confussing. He’s sure they are hiding something, but what? What could possibly be so bad about their past that Harry wouldn’t want Eggsy to remember?

The worst thing about waking up in a hospital is the beeping of the heart monitor.

Certainly it’s nice to know that he’s alive, still on the right side of the eternal divide and all that poetic nonsense.

But the ache in his head would very much appreciate it if the noise just stopped.

Then there’s the part when he starts to come to and it sounds like everyone’s speaking gibberish, which only makes the headache worse, and he wants to reach up and rub his temples to make the pain go away, but there’s a heavy weight on his left hand and his right feels oddly numb.

Probably broken, knowing his luck.

This wouldn’t be the first time he’d woken up in a hospital after getting on the wrong end of one of Dean’s fists, and honestly it probably wouldn’t be the last time.

It takes him a few more moments of blinking around in awe before it dawns on him that the gibberish they’re speaking isn’t starting to make sense, and that the weight on his left hand isn’t from being bandaged, but the feeling of somebody else’s hand in his own.

The person – a handsome bloke if you’re into that sort of older fella, which Eggsy certainly is – keeps trying to talk to him, but his words are making absolutely no sense and don’t even sound like English

He intends to mention that, opens his mouth to, but his throat’s too dry and all he manages is a pathetic squeaking noise.

There’s some more words that don’t make sense from the other man.

And this time he manages to get out the words, “who the fuck are you,” before everything is swallowed up by blackness.

\---

Waking up the second time isn’t any better, but at least this time everyone’s speaking English.

Which, to be clear, is a significant improvement as far as Eggsy is concerned.

Though that doesn’t make any of what they’re telling him any easier to take.

Amnesia.

That’s what they’re saying, as though his life is some fucking movie.

And that’s not even the best part.

“Married,” he repeats cautiously, eyeing the bloke from before with a look that’s less scrutinizing and more appraising.

At least, future him (or was it past him) had a decent taste in blokes.

“It’ll be two years in March.”

Two year he’s been married, out of the six years of his life that are just suddenly missing from his memory.

“What the bloody hell happened to me?”

“You were in an _accident_.”

There’s something about the way he says the word, all careful, as though he’s got some sort of hidden meaning that Eggsy’s supposed to understand. It’s mildly annoying that the hidden meaning doesn’t float to mind right away.

“A hell of an accident, yeah?”

“I suppose one could say so.”

That’s exceedingly cryptic.

“What’d you say your name was again?”

It’s hard to pretend that he doesn’t see the pain looked on the other man’s face, or the way he tucks his hands into his suit pockets in a manner that’s anything but nonchalant, before replying, “Harry. Harry Hart.”

\---

Now that he’s awake there are other people that start to visit him in the hospital.

His mum and sister come first, and he can’t even begin to explain how happy he is to see his mum’s familiar face.

She’s worried when she comes in, of course, but that smile eventually changes into something he hasn’t seen since he was a boy the longer they talk.

She catches him on what he’s missed the past six years. From politics to that one time the world almost ended to the latest Doctor Who plot twists. She brushes over personal matters, but he gets the gist of it. They’re in a better home now, Eggsy having helped out with the money he makes working as a tailor (something that had somehow gone without mentioning before), and Dean is one hundred percent out of the picture.

Then there’s his sister, his wonderful baby sister nearly all grown up now, who talks about her grade school classes in between drawing a colorful myriad of animals onto his cast with careful precision.

There are other people that come in to.

People who greet him with a familiarity that he wishes he could return.

Some stop by few a few minutes, other’s stay for hours.

The most frequent visitors are -

A beautiful woman who introduces herself as Roxy and calls him an idiot at least three times within the first hour.

And a man with a glasses sliding down his nose, who shoots Eggsy a disappointing looking when he has the nerve to ask _‘like the Wizard_ ’ upon hearing his name.

Though none of their visits last as long as Harry’s do – Harry who Eggsy still can’t remember even though he would really like to, who makes these sad faces, and wrinkles his nose every time Eggsy curses.

He never knows what to say to Harry.

Certainly there are questions on the edge of his tongue, but they die there without ever being spoken.

Instead he finds himself intently staring at the ring on the other man’s hand, a golden band that ought to be proof of something.

He can’t help but imagine what the one on his own hand would have looked like, had there not been a cast in the way.

The nurses assure him that he’ll be able to go home soon enough, though he’s not yet sure where home is.

\---

His first thought upon seeing the house that is apparently his– or well, theirs – is _holy shit._

His second thought is that this place is way too posh for him.

Still, there’s his trainers by the door which can’t possibly belong to Harry, his dad’s old snow globe on a sitting room end table and the type of over-priced chav clothes that Eggsy had always dreamed of buying in one of the closets.

It doesn’t feel like home, but there are little signs of him all over, and that helps ease some of the tension he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding in his shoulders.

He can’t deny that he must have lived here, he can feel something, hints of familiarity at the ghost of his consciousness.

It makes his chest tight just to think about.”

“I’ve made up the guest room, if you’d feel more comfortable there or I could sleep in there,” Harry offers.

“Yeah, that’d be for the best,” he replies, wishing his words didn’t sound so much like a question.

\---

He finds three things out the next morning.

First, that Harry is the type of morning person who is up first thing in the morning, finely dressed and making a full English long before Eggsy can even convince himself leave his bed.

Second, that it is near impossible to eat cut sausage with a broken wrist.

And thirdly, that he has a dog.

Honestly, the dog’s probably the best part.

\---

“I’m not an invalid,” he points out the next day, as Harry helps him wrap his cast in plastic wrap, “I mean other than this clunker I can get around just fine.”

“You were in a coma for nearly a month, and are currently suffering from amnesia,” Harry points out, voice firm and leaving no room for argument.

Not that Eggsy intends to let that stop him.

“I know, I know,” Eggsy insists, “I’m just saying, if you needed to go into the shop and get some work done, I can manage on my own just fine, yeah?”

He doesn’t miss the way Harry tenses at that, his hands freezing in the middle of wrapping the cast for a second, before continuing once again.

“Look I just-“ Eggsy starts, “I don’t want us to go broke cause I got into a car accident or whatever.”

He’s still fuzzy on the details of the whole accident, but considering everything else that he’s _fuzzy_ on that isn’t too surprising.

“I see.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

\---

The house feels a bit too empty without Harry there, but this was what he wanted, technically, it’s what he asked for.

So he tries to find a way to enjoy himself - he makes terrible tea with too much sugar, takes the dog for a walk, before setting about to explore their home.

His exploration turns out to be more of a series of disappointments anyways.

Half the rooms in the house are locked.

Everything upstairs except for the guest room that Eggsy’s been sleeping in is off-limits, plus there are two rooms downstairs which based on the placement seem as though they would have been offices, in a similar state.

Also there’s this god awful painting over the fireplace that he swears wasn’t there before, but his mind was probably just playing tricks on him again.

Still the one thing that seems to both him most of all is the lack of any personal photos.

Certainly, he’d never been the type to tote an album around, but he imagines there ought to have been a few.

Something from the wedding that he can’t remember, at least.

\---

He dreams he’s bleeding out, gunshot wound to his shoulder, head colliding with the ground as he goes down.

A familiar and frantic voice in his ear calling out an unfamiliar name.

When he wakes from his nightmare that night Harry’s beside him, holding him down, assuring him that he’s alright, that he’s safe now.  

As though he knew what horrors Eggsy had been dreaming of.

Perhaps he does.

“Stay with me,” Eggsy whispers, hand curling into the other man’s silk pajamas to hold him in place with something akin to desperation, “please just stay.”

“As long as you need.”

It’s easier to sleep this time, with Harry beside him. He hadn’t even realized he had missed this sort of thing until it was right before him.

The next morning he stands in front of the mirror and traces the scars on his body, pressing his fingers to a mark just above his clavicle, the very spot that hurt in his dreams.

\---

Roxy stops by, one of the days when Harry is out, to take Eggsy to lunch.

She’s tanner than the last time he saw her, favoring her left arm over her right, and looking over her shoulder in a way that could almost seem anxious.

They talk about trivial things - the weather, their dogs, nothing of any real sustenance.

It seems like he’s been having a lot of those sorts of conversations lately.

“How’d we meet,” he asks, as their meal is dying down, and watches at the look of alarm that settles on her face.

“Through work, of course.”

He may not remember much, but it doesn’t take an idiot to realize that what she’s telling him isn’t the whole truth.

\---

He brings it up to Harry over dinner in a faux-casual manner, picking at the pasta that he had requested with disinterest.

“I just feel like you lot ain’t telling me everything,” he mumbles, settling his fork down at once, “I know I missed out on a lot, forgot it after the – the accident, but there’s stuff missing.”

“Do you have any idea what that _stuff_ is,” Harry asks.

Eggsy hopes the look he shoots him in reply is more on the fond side of annoying, “if I knew I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”

“No, I suppose not,” Harry agrees, before offering, “well, then, ask me anything, and I’ll do my best to answer?"

And there are a lot of things Eggsy wants to ask.

He wants to ask about the locked doors, or the scars that litter his body, or the fact that this place is way too luxurious for two _tailors_ to be able to afford.

He also always wants to ask about how they met, or if fireworks went off the first time they kissed, or what it would feel like to have those hands on his body.

The problem is figuring out where to begin either of those discussions.

So he settles for something less.

“Did I make a 20/20 vision pun on New Year’s?”

“You spent a week making puns. Honestly, you only stop because Merlin threatened to fire you if you didn’t.”

“You know, he did seem like a bit of a stick in the mud.”

\---

“We’re married, yeah?”

The sigh he gets in return feels almost familiar and makes his heart clench up at once.

“Yes, Eggsy.”

“Great, then I’m doing this?”

“What are doing now?”

He doesn’t bother answering, just crosses the distance between them and presses his lips to Harry’s before he can think twice about this, because he’s wanted to do this for a while. Ever since the moment he woke up, half-dead and realized that there was an incredibly fit man sitting at his bedside.

Certainly longer than that if he could manage to remember.

They pull apart too quickly for Eggsy’s tastes, the noise that escapes his lips low and needy and betraying him.

“Are you sure about this, because if you’re doing this because you think we normally would or-“

“Just shut up a kiss me, for fuck’s sake, mate.”

At least, Harry doesn’t have to be told twice.

\---

He doesn’t magically get his memory back because they have mind blowing sex.

That doesn’t make the sex any less mind blowing, but the point stands.

\---

The relative bliss following it would probably be considered some of the best days of his life, at least the bits that he could remember.

He kisses his husband goodbye each morning, and falls asleep to the sound of a familiar heartbeat each night.

It’s the sort of life that he could get used to, that he could imagine having been his own at one point in time.

Though that doesn’t mean he’ll stop freezing in place and wondering why somethings just feel a bit _off_.

\---

When the fallout happens it’s quicker than he expected.

It’s an accident really, the way everything moves so suddenly, once second he’s standing there worried, and the next he’s trying to best to pack things he can barely even call his own into a suitcase one handed.

He’s not sure how they move from the words, “did you get mugged,” rolling off his lips, when he takes in the sight of Harry coming home from work one day with blood staining his lapels, to “you fucking piece of shit, don’t fucking touch.”

It all happens so quickly, he barely even realizes it till he’s out the door and down the street.

He picks up a payphone and dials a number that seems second nature to type in, saying “you fucking lied to me, you all did,” as soon as she picks up the phone.

At least she has the dignity to sound apologetic, something Harry hadn’t been able to manage.

“I wanted to tell you,” she insists, “but Merlin insisted it would be better if we gave you time to remember on your own.”

“And what if I had never found out? What if I never remember? Would you have all just gone on pretending that we’re fucking _tailors_ , and that every word you were feeding me wasn’t a bloodly lie?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, “I don’t know.”

\---

Her house is much the same as the one he shared with Harry’s – standard Kingsman issue, Roxy explains - so it doesn't take much for him to feel comfortable there.

At least her secrets are out in the open, there's a gun on the kitchen table that's currently being used as a paperweight, and he's not sure why but the sight of that makes him breathe easier. 

She explains a lot of things, things he would have wished would been explained to him before.

Like what they did for a living. (“We’re sort of like the modern knights of the round table.”)

To what really happened to him. (“Russian mafia, they cut our frequency before an extraction could be arranged.”)

And the fact that apparently he had once _saved the world_. (“Please don’t let that go to your head.”)

It’s refreshing to finally be able to put the pieces together, he still doesn’t remember anything, so it’s a bit like hearing the story of somebody else – a cooler version of himself who saves to world and gets the girl - or well, guy, in this case.

“So we’re like James Bond, yeah?”

“We’re ten times cooler than James Bond.”

\---

Roxy’s a great mate, but she’s not Harry and she makes that abundantly clear, reminding him multiple times a day that she’s “not your husband and not going to wait on your sorry arse.”

She also insists that she’s not meddling in the romantic affairs of her friends, but he hardly believes that one.

Not when he wakes up one morning to find _go talk to him, you idiot_ written on his cast in her neat handwriting.

He doesn’t listen to her.

No matter how much he wants to.

\---

After what feels like an eternity he gets his cast off.

There’s something like symbolism there, at least, he thinks that there’s supposed to be.

Which is probably why he ends up outside their – no _Harry’s -_ house a few hours after he’s finally able to move his right hand again.

“I’m still fucking pissed,” he says, the second Harry opens the door, “but I figured I ought to let you explain yourself, yeah?”

“That’s very generous of you.”

“Yeah, well, Roxy’s got the least comfortable couch in the fucking world, so don’t flatter yourself.”

“I wouldn’t have dreamed of it.”

\---

“You nearly died,” Harry says, as if that’s the most painful part of this conversation, “I nearly lost you. The whole time you were lying there I kept thinking about it, how I pushed you too hard, pressured you into taking the mission even though you’d just finished another one. I blamed myself for what happened, I still do, and the thought that this could happen again was beyond painful.”

“So you lied to me?”

“To protect you, yes.”

“You know that’s pretty fucked up.”

“I may realize that now.”

“Took you long enough.”

\---

Starting again is slow.

They kiss against the kitchen table one morning though, and Eggsy thinks he can remember what the fireworks might have felt like.

He reacquaints himself with their spy headquarters, texting Roxy to let her know she was right about the James Bond thing, as he explores hallways that he swear he’s been down before.

Harry teaches him how to make a martini and how to fire a gun.

Both feel like second nature after the first few times.  

\---

Somebody calls him “Galahad” one day, all casual like, and when Eggsy responds without even needing to be prompted, he counts it as a step in the right direction.

Though he can’t remember for the life of him, if the guy standing before him is Tristan or Caradoc.  

\---

The worst thing about head injuries is that they never entirely make sense, the doctors are still trying to figure out the great mystery of the brain, and none of it can entirely explain while one day as he’s scooping an obscene amount of sugar into his tea, all while listening to Harry talk about something he’d read in the morning paper everything just sort of clicks into place.

The spoon in his hand clatters to the floor, making a sharp sound as it goes down.

“Is everything alright Eggsy?”

“Venice.”

“Pardon?”

“I proposed to you in Venice after that mission with the drug cartel, the sun was setting and we weren’t going to make the extraction point in time, because I asked you to marry me, assuming we didn’t die,” he says, “and you had the nerve to lecture me on the art of giving a proper proposal.”

“You remember that?”

“I remember everything,” he says, and it’s not until he says the words that the meaning of them sink it, because after so long of not remembering them it’s all finally coming back. “I remember everything, god, Harry, I-”

“Yes?”

“I’ve missed you.”

 


End file.
